Chapter 2

Lesson 1—The Consonants, Vyañjanāni

Having studied the Sanskrit vowels, we now turn to the consonants. The Sanskrit word varga means “group,” “class” or “family.” In the consonant system, each varga groups sounds according to their place of articulation, moving from the back of the mouth toward the lips. Learning this arrangement will help you remember the letters and form their sounds correctly. The table below shows the complete group.

These core consonant varṇas, or letters, are of two types: grouped consonants, or vargīya-vyañjanāni (tan columns above, labeled “Grouped”), and ungrouped consonants, or avargīya-vyañjanāni (gray columns, labeled “Ungrouped”).

Vedic note: Vedic Sanskrit also includes ळ ḷa, a retroflex lateral related to ल la. It appears in some Vedic recitation texts, including Śrī Rudram, but is not one of the four standard semivowels shown in the chart.

Lesson 2—Grouped Consonants

Grouped Consonants, Vargīya-vyañjanāni (25)

The 25 grouped consonants are arranged in five families, or vargas: Ka, Ca, Ṭa, Ta and Pa. Together they are called vargīya-vyañjanāni, “grouped consonants.” They are also classed as sparśas, meaning “touch” sounds, because the tongue or lips make full contact at the point of pronunciation. Within each varga, the first four letters are stop letters, and the fifth is a nasal.

The table shows this split visually: the tan columns are the twenty stop letters, and the green column contains the five nasals.

Stop Letters (20)

The first four letters in each varga are the core consonants of that family. Technically, they are called stop letters, or plosives, because the tongue or lips fully close at the place of pronunciation, briefly stopping the flow of air before the sound is released.

Nasals (5)

The fifth letter in each varga is a nasal. Like the stop letters, the nasal letters use full contact at their place of pronunciation; unlike the stops, the air is directed through the nose. This gives each nasal its sound while keeping it linked to its own varga position.

Lesson 3—Ungrouped Consonants

The ungrouped consonants (gray columns) stand outside the five varga families. They consist of four semivowels, three sibilants and the aspirate (ha ह).

These letters are still organized by sthāna, but they do not behave like the five varga families. The vargas are touch sounds: the tongue or lips make complete contact, closing the passage through the mouth. The ungrouped consonants are formed without this complete oral contact. Vedic Sanskrit also includes ळ ḷa, a retroflex lateral counterpart to ल la, but it is not one of the four standard semivowels.

For now, learn their principal traditional alignment within the five-place map. Chapter 3 returns to them from the standpoint of pronunciation, with practice for feeling the semivowels, sibilants and ha directly in the mouth.

Lesson 4—The Internal Pattern of Each Varga

The twenty-five grouped consonants are not just a list; they are a patterned system. In every varga, the same sequence appears: a basic unvoiced sound, its aspirated form, the voiced form, the voiced aspirated form, and the nasal.

We begin with the Ka Varga as the model. These same principles apply to all five families.

The illustration gives the pattern in brief. Here is how it works in the Ka Varga:

• The first letter in the Ka Varga is hard (unvoiced) and unaspirated. The vocal cords do not vibrate when we pronounce ka.
• By adding aspiration to the release, we derive kha, the second letter in the family.
• If we soften ka and let the vocal cords vibrate, we derive ga, the third letter of the family. This softening through vocal resonance is called voicing, which we will study in detail shortly.
• Adding aspiration to ga, we derive gha, the fourth letter of the family. This feature is called aspiration. Gha is the aspirated form of ga.
• Keeping the same place of articulation and directing the sound through the nose produces ṅa, the nasal of the Ka family. We can derive the proper nasal sound for ourselves from the familiar Sanskrit name Laṅkā, in which ṅ comes immediately before k, the first letter in the varga. Practice pronouncing the ṅk cluster in Laṅkā again and again, and then drop off the k sound to isolate the nasal sound. That is the correct nasal sound for the Ka Varga.

Lesson 5—Aspiration, Prāṇa

Now that we have seen the pattern inside each varga, we can study its two main features one at a time. We begin with aspiration, or how much breath is released after the consonant.

In each family of grouped consonants, or varga, two letters are sounded with an extra force of air: the second and fourth letters in the row, as shown in the table below. In the Ka Varga, for example, these are kha and gha. This force of air is aspiration. Across the five vargas, there are ten aspirated letters. These are known as aspirates or mahāprāṇa.

The ten consonants with a small force of air behind them (like ka) are classed as alpaprāṇa (unaspirated).

The unaspirated stop consonants are the first and third letters in each varga row. Each has an aspirated counterpart immediately to its right: the second and fourth letters.

In Roman transliteration, aspiration is shown by placing the letter h after the consonant, as in kha. In Devanāgarī, these are distinct letters, not a base consonant plus a separate ह.

Lesson 6—Voicing, Ghoṣa

Voicing is the difference between a sound made without vocal-cord vibration and one made with the vocal cords vibrating. When the vocal cords vibrate, the sound has a hum or resonance in the throat.

All of the consonants can be distinguished as either voiced or unvoiced. (Note that all vowels are voiced.) Other terms used for voicing are soft (for voiced) and hard (for unvoiced).

Unvoiced (aghoṣa) letters have no vocal-cord vibration during the consonant portion; the following vowel is still voiced. The unvoiced letters occupy the columns labeled Unvoiced in the table below. The prime example of an unvoiced consonant is ka.

A consonant is voiced (saghoṣa) if vocal-cord vibration begins during the consonant itself. The voiced letters occupy the columns labeled Voiced in the table.

You can feel the difference between a voiced letter and an unvoiced letter if you hold your fingers to your Adam’s apple during pronunciation. Compare the bare consonant k with g. To feel the difference more easily, compare ak to ag.

This distinction between voiced and unvoiced letters is an essential part of understanding the structure of the Sanskrit alphabet. Voicing plays an important role in the principle of sandhi, the way certain letters coming together in speech change one another. Such changes occur in many languages. Sanskrit describes them systematically, and its traditional spelling often reflects the resulting sound.

To get an idea of how the voicing of one letter can influence another, compare the final sounds of the English plurals cats and dogs. The ending of cats is the unvoiced sound s. After the voiced g in dogs, the same plural ending is normally pronounced as the voiced sound z. This familiar English pattern illustrates how a neighboring sound can influence voicing.

Lesson 7—Subtleties of Voicing & Aspiration

The Unvoiced Unaspirated Consonants: ka, ca, ṭa, ta, pa

A caution to avoid aspirating these letters.

In English, the unvoiced stops p, t and k are commonly aspirated at the beginning of a stressed syllable, as in pin, tin and kin. English speakers may carry that puff of air into the Sanskrit unvoiced unaspirated series, ka, ca, ṭa, ta, pa. Restrain the release so that ka, for example, does not sound like kha.

Distinguishing Voiced from Unvoiced

In the beginning, the difference between ka and ga may be hard to hear. Likewise, the other unaspirated unvoiced letters (ca, ṭa, ta and pa) may sound somewhat like their voiced counterparts (ja, ḍa, da and ba). It will take time to hear and understand this subtlety. With practice, the distinctions become clear.

Studying the similarity in sound between the unvoiced unaspirated letters, like ka, and the voiced unaspirated letters, like ga, can also be helpful in learning the correct pronunciation. This can be done by saying ga several times without aspiration and then attempting to give ka the same crisp release while keeping it unvoiced.

The reason this works is that the sound ga engages the vocal cords during the consonant, while ka begins without vocal-cord vibration during the k portion; vibration begins with the following vowel. If the vocal cords begin vibrating soon after the consonant is released, there is no extended puff of breath, giving us the unaspirated ka. So, another way to think of the unaspirated ka sound is as a crisp k with the vowel sound following quickly after it. This is true for all of the unvoiced unaspirated letters (ka, ca, ṭa, ta, pa).

For the examples in this course, words have, when possible, been chosen in which the unaspirated letters are preceded by another letter (for instance, skate rather than Kate). With these added letters, it is more natural to say the unvoiced unaspirated consonants in an unaspirated way.

Voiced Aspirated Consonants: gha, jha, ḍha, dha, bha

A caution not to drop the aspiration from these letters.

For the five voiced aspirated consonants (gha, jha, ḍha, dha, bha), the issue is reversed. English does not have a comparable series of voiced aspirated stops, so English speakers may omit the aspiration, saying ga instead of gha, for example. Combined words such as dog-house can provide a rough practice cue for releasing breath after a voiced stop; use the course audio as the pronunciation model.